AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury
By KATE McILWAIN May 29, 2015
Notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale wormed his way into a Sydney family’s life and ‘‘latched on’’ to a young boy before abusing him at Bulli Parish, where he worked for three weekends as a relieving priest in the 1980s.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Ballarat has heard the 81-year-old former priest went on to abuse children in Maroubra and the Diocese of Wollongong after he had been sent away from Ballarat because of multiple complaints that he was sexually abusing children.
Despite conditions imposed by Ballarat’s Bishop Ronald Mulkearns that Ridsdale be tranfered to work in a desk job at Sydney’s Catholic Inquiry Centre and have no contact with children, the paedophile tracked down a prayer group which included families with children.
“In this particular prayer group, you latched on to a 10 or 11 year-old boy straight away, didn’t you?,” counsel assisting the commissioner, Gail Furness, said during Thursday’s hearing.
“And you became friendly with the family, you had a computer and a keyboard that you used because the boy was interested in keyboards, and you lent him the keyboard, didn’t you?
“In your words, you wormed your way into his family?”
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